The famous lobster telephone, created by Salvador Dali in 1938, is not the first time exhibited in the museum. But in the exhibition Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924-Today, which opened Oct. 14 at the Design Museum in London, the iconic object, like so many others from the first decades of the 20th century, is compared to works they also still flirt with. with surrealism, but signed by many contemporary artists with cultural, political and social references to the present day.

Of course, none of them, even today, can outshine either the lobster telephone or the voluptuous “Mae West Lips”, the famous crimson sofa, which Dali designed again in the same 1938, commissioned by a British poet and mother. art by Edward James.

Between the two great wars, the Spanish art provocateur, like many of his like-minded and fellow artists, saw in such undertakings an undermining of the bourgeois perception of society. The dream has finally won the right to a place in everyday life. Soon, in fact, she acquired a privileged position in art, decorative and non-decorative, in cinema, fashion, photography, etc. In addition, several surrealists such as Man Ray and Lee Miller also worked as fashion photographers, and Dali and De Kiriko created covers for Vogue. Some of them are on display next to others that are contemporary, such as the one created by Tim Walker in 2013 with model Tilda Swinton for W Magazine. Contemporary designers such as Mary Katrantzu, Iris van Herpen and Yasmina Ata also contributed to the event.

Around 350 works created over the century are on display at the London Museum, which runs until February 19, 2023. The works of iconic Surrealist figures such as Magritte, Marcel Disham and Leonora Carrington sit side by side with contemporary figures from Dior to Björk. Some of them use the human body as a canvas. After all, sexuality, freedom in general, has always been the privileged sphere of surrealism. Among the surprise exhibits is the short film Destiny, the result of Dali’s collaboration with Walt Disney, which tells the story of Time and a mortal woman.

“If you thought Surrealism started to lose its luster in the 60s, think again,” says curator Katherine Johnson. “The report shows that this movement remains strong. The first Surrealists survived World War I and the 1918 flu epidemic. They also responded to these horrors with their art. Today we are living in a new war and a new pandemic.” And possibly new creative answers.